Abstract

The present exercise is a study to enquire into the recent climatic transition, if any in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Conventional climatic indicators such as rainfall distribution, temperature regime, relative humidity, sunshine duration, wind velocity and evaporation characteristics were examined over a period of twenty six years of available meteorological data. The analyses showed a remarkable mutual resemblance and unidirectional trend in all the temperature parameters like absolute monthly maximum, absolute monthly minimum, mean monthly maximum, mean monthly minimum and mean monthly temperatures and the mean monthly maximum and mean monthly minimum relative humidities. Similarly, the trends in sunshine duration, wind velocity and pan evaporation were also supportingly in accordance to the general trends of climatic transition. The analysis based on a smaller period climatic data shows a good deal of agreement with the trends of studies on global warming projections made by simulated models on the basis of CO2 concentration changes in the atmosphere.

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